CitiServe Orange Box Vs Recharge Cards
by BusinessDay, Nigeria2005-11-01 00:00:00 | Viewed 1749 times
The Nigerian consumer is in for better service delivery, if the innovation of the CitiServer Orange Box concept from the business stables of Vigeo Holdings is anything to go by. This is because recharge card retailers of GSM airtime for brands like MTN, Mtel, Vmobile and Glo, as well as other fixed wireless telephony networks are gradually beginning to switch to the CitiServe airtime retail network called CitiServe Recharge for reasons of safety from theft, avoidance of manufacturing complications and complexity of logistics, to mention a few.
According to one of the CitiServe Orange Box operator (called CNP - CitiServe Network Partner), Busola Faroun at a recent media parley seeking to clear the air regarding the novel airtime marketing concept, "I gave up on cards and gladly switched to being a CNP the day I lost a lot of cards to robbers.
"I can't even say exactly how much was stolen from me because I had not even taken stock of my purchase. But it was a whole lot of money. I was dispossessed of the cards at gun point. But today, I have peace of mind and my airtime retail business is going on smoothly."
Corroborating Busola Faroun's opinion was CitiServe Network Partner, Yemisi Madojutimi, who said "although I still sell recharge cards, I have done my calculations and I realize that the profit margin with the CitiServe Orange Box is higher on some key GSM airtime denominations than on their recharge card versions, and as a business woman, every little profit counts." Whereas most card retailers in kiosks sell the Vmobile N1000 denomination at N980 and the street hawker sells it at its full face value, it is understood that a CNP enjoys almost 10 per cent discount on that value from CitiServe. This generally applies, though in varying degrees to all other airtime denominations of the airtime denominations of the different telephony networks.
Confirming this at press conference, recently, Lola Ogunbambi, executive director, CitiServe Limited, said "We are looking at a situation where each of our CNPs have a minimum profit margin of N25,000 monthly depending on the volume they do."
Indeed, many challenges came with the advent of mobile telephony in the country, but unfortunately, the response of the service providers, including the fixed wireless genre, has been inadequate. In recent times, consumer dissatisfaction has been rampant regarding manufacturing and retailing of recharge cards. Of recent, there was a poignant issue of artificial scarcity and spurious pricing of recharge cards that millions of Nigerians responded to with collective rage.
Business Day, Friday, October 28, 2005
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